Sweet I just joined it, thanks for the invite.

And yeah very good point hopefully he can put everything back together because he for sure has the mental game if he can get himself into contention. Also yeah JT has been a beast over the past year 6 wins is crazy good.

So about the tilting spot I said I’d post about yesterday here it is: This is from my first orbit of the session.

Hand: ($1/3 w/$6 straddle)

Preflop: 2 limps to Hero, Hero CO ($304) raises to $25 w/AA, SB ($200) calls, fold, MP ($280) calls.

Flop: ($90)
278

SB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $60, SB folds, MP calls

Turn: ($210)
3

MP checks, Hero reaches for chips to bet BUT THE RIVER GETS DEALT….. the dealer was busy talking to some guy about sports betting and the world series and completely loses track of the action. I immediately speak up as I’m obviously upset and the entire table sides with me while the dealer says sorry I though I saw a check… he was never looking.

River: ($210)
6

MP checks, Hero obviously pissed and now it’s clear I have a strong hand most likely an overpair since villain knows I wanted to bet the turn (note vilain is fairly nitty - I’ve played vs. him in other sessions) I thought the following:
- He doesn’t have QQ+ as I know he raises those hands pre and pretty large too and that essentially leaves 99-JJ as the only hands he'd call with and I honestly don't even know taking the entire hand into consideration if he'd even call with those at this point.
- He can have two pair, a straight, or a set that he slowplayed as he knows I’m not afraid to bet, and maybe an unlikely backdoor flush.

Result: I check and MP shows: 66 for the set of sixes.

I say I’m surprised you called the flop bet (since we have a small history and as I said he’s pretty tight) and he goes “I wanted to call once and see if you’d bet again, thought you might have AK.”

After this hand I immediately get up and go for a walk. When I came back I saw the dealer and told him it’s ok things happen, I mean me berating him would do nothing and change nothing so I’d rather stay professional about it but I was obviously pissed since it’s a $210 mistake on his part as villain is 100% folding to my turn bet. I thought about leaving because I didn’t want to play on any tilt but after the walk I came back at peace with the situation and ended up with a nice profit for the session. Funny side note: about 4hrs into the session the same dealer came back to our table and that’s when I won my biggest pot of the night.

Hours Played: 5.5

Final Result: +$488

Absolute bull****. Obviously policy varies in this spot from room to room but what SHOULD happen is the river should be shuffled back into the deck and the action should still be on you on the turn. I'd be steaming too. :')

The idea of putting the river card back into the deck and giving me the action back that I should have had OTT is really good but of course they didn't think to do that nor did they care to try and fix the scenario in any way. I can't say I'm surprised though. At least the session ended up well which is always nice.

It's a pretty standard thing imo, they should have known to do that. Even my ******ed casino would know to do that.

Yeah the more I think about the lack of effort shown by the casino to come to a fair decision about the situation the more pissed I get about it. I'll just have to forget about it though and move on as what's done is done.

Personal Background:

I figured I’d give a bit of background about myself to maybe help give those of you following my thread a bit of an insight into my life.

I’ve always loved sports and played a variety of them at high levels growing up including hockey, baseball, volleyball and golf - which I shifted the majority of my focus to from age 15 onwards (hence my 2+2 username being TWoods). This led to offers to play golf on a scholarship in the states but I ended up making the decision to stay home and attend University in Canada. I’ve also had bad shoulder issues since my first year of University which have negatively impacted my golf game and left me really frustrated at times.

As far as school goes I’ve never liked it. I don’t think the environment actually helps individuals learn efficiently, rather it just creates an environment where for the most part you regurgitate information and forget about it a day later. I rarely ever went to class as I don’t believe that wasting hours of my life listening to a prof read different sections of the textbook that I’ll eventually read anyways is worth my time. I did however study quite a bit on my own and was a Deans list student throughout University and graduated with honours so it’s not like I didn’t try as I do believe that having a strong education and connections was going to be very important for me moving forward – as I hear a lot of individuals say in many threads throughout 2+2.

As far as life goes post-University I hate the general mentality that everyone has to follow a set path of 9-5 corporate work where everyone essentially complains all day about their brutal job and how they never have enough money to do anything- yet they have no side hustle and spend money as if they’re on the Forbes Billionaires List. Although technically I followed this path in a sense I don’t complain about my job or my life like everyone else around me at work seems to do 24/7… yet they aren’t ever doing anything to change it. The ironic part is these individuals who spend all day complaining and literally do nothing to change it are the same ones who hear about me studying poker and love to tell me about how it’s all luck and how it’s dumb to study since at the end of the day I’m just spending my time gambling and I’ll eventually lose (blah blah blah you know what I mean - typical bs).

Getting back to my job though I’m also not saying that I love it by any stretch, but it’s ok and it provides me with a very steady income which at this point in my life I think allows me to pursue poker in a good frame of mind with less tilt. Having poker there to mentally stimulate me as I challenge myself to constantly improve keeps me sane in a sense. It also has filled the void that sports used to fill for me.

And who knows maybe I’ll permanently stay an nl5z/LLSNL grinder forever but I sure as hell hope not. I envision bigger and brighter things in my future with regards to poker like I’m sure a lot of you do that are on this site/reading this thread.

Anyways, that’s all for now. Hopefully this added some much needed substance into the thread.

Subbed! Nice results so far/I like the background post ^ keep that kind of stuff coming.

glglgl

You seem to have your head screwed on fairly well. Stick with it and I imagine you can be quite successful in poker.

Thanks man good to have you here. I'll try to make a post every once in a while like the background one.

Thanks Meale I appreciate the kind words. I know I have a really long way to go but as long as I keep enjoying putting in the work to get better each day hopefully success will come.

OCTOBER RECAP:

Online Hours Played: 70hrs

Live Hours Played: 21hrs

Online Profit: +$187

Live Profit: +$262

So I fell short of my 100hr online goal but almost got close to 100 total hours of play. I'm slightly disappointed with this but at the same time I keep reminding myself that studying needs to come first because I'm trying to improve as fast as possible. With essentially no rakeback on stars zoom quality play and studying is rewarded and I need to keep that as my focus for the time being.

I'll think of some November goals and post them either later today or tomorrow.

November Goals:

Online Play: 100hrs

Study: 60hrs

Live Play: 0hrs*as I discussed earlier with those following the thread my main focus needs to be to improve my game (this combined with the fact that my commute to play live is okay but definitely not ideal) and therefore online will remain my main focus. However, whenever I get the urge to play live 200nl (1/2) and 300nl (1/3) I'll be going as I do enjoy live play (which I have the bankroll for) and I know I have an edge in these games which are significantly softer than nl5z online.

goodluck this month! Get that game sharp for the Hero!

You're on stars?

Thanks man! Goodluck to you too.

And yeah all my online volume at the moment is on stars. The big zoom player pool 24/7 kind of makes it the obvious choice for now. Are you solely on Stars too?

Also I played a session of nl10z today which went alright - I did completely butcher one hand though where I should have found a fold but I just couldn't in the moment. I'll still finish off the 50k hands at nl5z (since I need to make sure I can beat nl5z for a reasonable sample before moving up - also I have that 50k hand bet with my buddy). So for now I'll just be throwing in the odd session of nl10z to get some experience before hopefully moving up for good.

Yes, also on stars at 5nl (reg tables though.) Any tips for keeping your redline flat? I generally keep mine flat for the first 300-500 hands of a sesh and then it declines. Problem might be my AF of like 1.4. I'm still winning at 10bb/100 thru 24k hands.

Oh ok nice. And the analogy I’m going to use here with regards to your question is related to golf. I would love to say this is exactly what you need to do to keep your redline flat but I don’t think I’m qualified to give a definitive answer (at least yet – and for all I know especially based off your extremely solid 10bb/100 winrate you could very easily be better than me). It’s like when I see a bad golfer teaching bad habits to another bad golfer, they may get them slightly better in the short term but at the end of the day it isn’t necessarily correct and won’t lead to long term-success. There are actually multiple people that have wrote in my thread who are much better than I am currently and would most likely be able to give you a good answer to your question. But if I was to give advice and I’m saying with fair warning that it may not be the best - yes you definitely need to increase your AF to at least 2 at the very minimum to achieve a steady redline. 1.4 seems much to passive if having a steady redline is your goal. But that doesn’t just mean go out and be reckless you have to slowly learn where to use aggression to get the best result. This actually relates to a post I was about to write about how I’ve actually removed the redline from my graph and just use money won and the all in EV adjusted lines because I found myself worrying about my redline way too much and I believe it may have even been slightly altering my in game decisions which I disliked (this isn’t to say I don’t ever look at it but I really have made an effort not to for now).

*Note: I’m still always down to go over hands on here or discord and talk strat with you and anyone I’m just hesitant to give answers to questions when I don’t want to steer you wrong if you know what I mean. Just as a reference my AF is 2.8 so far in nl5z if that helps anything.

No, that helps alot. I appreciate that you are able to recognize when you aren't the most knowledgeable on something. That's a skill in life a lot don't have. I'm questioning whether I should worry about my redline now or just wait till a higher stake cause I'm cleaning up 5nl quite comfortably, don't know if I want to play around with things, though maybe now is the right time. One thing I definitely don't do enough is bluff raise post, especially on the river.

Nice win for Cantlay today. Glad to see him be successful after what he has been through. Always had the talent. Good to see Hossler playing well also.

crush playground, eat salad

This could not be more true. I'm pretty new to 2+2 and dont often comment on threads but you seem to be a nice and super humble guy TWoods. From one Canadian to another keep putting in the work I have a good feeling about this thread.

Ok perfect I'm glad it helped. And I will say from what I've seen at least at low stakes - bluffing the river most of the time can be very bad. I have found myself bluffing the river when many times it was clearly not the correct play as a lot of villains will just never find a fold once they get to the river when we bluff. If and when you do it you have to pick the very best of spots and specific villains who will be able to fold. Bluffing the river can be detrimental to one's win rate as if it's not done properly it's really expensive and you'll just be burning money. It's probably best to first look at being as aggressive as you can when you're the PF aggressor (without being too crazy) and also to figure out when to show aggression as the PF caller when villains show weakness postflop through their bet sizing or lack of betting especially on wet boards which is a huge tell of hand strength at the limits we play as I'm sure you know.

Also I didn't watch the tournament but I saw the highlights of Cantlay winning and I'm really happy for the guy too, he's been through a lot.

Interesting post lol, but thanks for stopping by ITT. I'm assuming you're talking about playground poker in Montreal, I've never been and plan on heading there in the near future so hopefully I do crush it when I go. And I'll make sure to throw in a salad or two while I'm there haha.


Thanks for the kind words man, I really appreciate you saying that.

I had the urge to play some live poker tonight but didn't end up leaving to go until really late since I have hockey on Thursday nights. Played a really short session which I know isn't ideal at all with the commute but going in I planned on playing longer (5+hrs) I just ended up being more tired than I thought I would be.

Hours Played: 3

Final Result: +$93

You play at woodbine?

I've been to woodbine a few times but that was quite a while back, I haven't been there at all in the past year.

Ah, fair. Is there a lot of other places to play in the GTA?